After the vanguard secured an initial advantage.
Heavy transport ships landed on the planet's surface one after another.
With support from ground firepower, Knight Mechs and Tank Clusters were also deployed onto the battlefield.
Engines roared as massive gun barrels swung back and forth.
Terrifying firepower poured down upon one hostile target after another.
The surging mechanical tide was torn apart by the Empire's overwhelming firepower.
It was reduced to wreckage crackling with sparks and belching black smoke.
Explosions and the intense flashes of flares rose from the ground, illuminating the dim sky.
In the void above, plasma beams, torpedoes, missiles, and pulse beams fell without cease, relentlessly bombarding the surface.
Fighter craft screamed through the sky, churning the rising black smoke into swirling vortices.
The glow from their engines left bright trails behind them.
The Astartes, possessing Gene Engines, were deadly blades.
They cut through the defenses established by the mechanical tide and seized heavily guarded fortresses.
Horus charged at the forefront of the battlefield, incomparably valiant.
Even without a Gene Engine, he was an unstoppable war god upon the battlefield.
With his own strength alone, he swept aside his enemies.
Heavy weapons could not lock onto his movements, while lighter weapons could not harm him.
He was like a primal force of savagery, raging beneath the dust-filled sky.
His claws, coated in a Power Field, easily sliced through the machines and turned them into scrapped wreckage.
Every swing of the Warhammer in his hand conjured a surge of azure destructive energy from thin air.
Wherever Horus went, shattered mechanical wreckage lay beneath his feet.
Behind him, he left a path of slaughter blazing with fierce flames.
Horus's strength soon drew the enemy's attention.
They dispatched even more powerful Slaughter Machines to deal with him.
However, a Primarch was invincible in the material realm.
No matter how powerful an opponent the enemy sent, Horus ultimately defeated it.
During this process, he received a small bit of help.
More than a dozen ragged humans ran out from a sewer exit.
Using their crude weapons, they helped Horus destroy a Slaughter Weapon.
"I thought all humans had been locked inside those buildings."
Horus was somewhat surprised when he saw the humans who had helped him.
"It seems you are fellow humans from the stars. On behalf of the survivors, I welcome you."
An elderly man fitted with mechanical prosthetic limbs stepped forward and spoke with Horus.
Horus said, "My name is Horus. I am the son of the ruler of the Human Empire, and also his most valued son."
"We were ordered to liberate this planet, completely destroy these Mechs, and rebuild human society."
The old man bowed, then introduced himself as well.
"My name is Rona. I am an elder among the refugees. It is a pleasure to meet you."
"What happened on this planet?" Horus asked. "Why were humans kept in captivity?"
"This was all the evil deed of that governor. He used to be a good man, but later, he went mad." Rona's tone was heavy.
"Tell me in detail."
Horus looked around. The battle nearby was already nearing its end.
The mechanical army had been defeated. Destroying them was merely a matter of time.
He had plenty of time to hear this world's story.
Rona did not hide anything. He revealed Planet Senuus III's past to Horus.
After the Age of Strife arrived, the number of rogue Psykers and Mutants rose sharply.
The world of Planet Senuus III fell into chaos, with all manner of bizarre incidents emerging one after another.
To protect the people, the planet's governor at the time ignored opposition and unsealed the Mech Mother Machine, which should have been destroyed.
He uploaded his consciousness into the server, replacing the Mech Mother Machine's AI and becoming the master of the mechanical army.
Using the mechanical army, the planet's governor suppressed the unrest and restored society to its former peace.
However, not long after uploading his consciousness, the planet's governor was corrupted by hidden malicious code and became the Dark Governor.
The human leadership, realizing that something was wrong, responded immediately.
They intended to erase the planet governor's self-consciousness and format the Mech Mother Machine.
Yet the Dark Governor struck first and launched the Doomsday Judgment War.
He unleashed all manner of extinction-level weapons, turning the entire world into a wasteland.
Countless humans died miserably, social order collapsed, and civilization was destroyed.
Realizing that humanity could not win, the leadership sought to prevent the Dark Governor from poisoning other worlds.
They chose to overload the climate controllers and destroy the planet's polar magnetic fields.
This left the world of Planet Senuus III shrouded in dark clouds and electromagnetic storms all year round.
The victorious Dark Governor was trapped on the surface and could not leave the planet.
The satellites and space stations he deployed into the void all lost contact due to interference from the electromagnetic storms and dark clouds.
Trapped there, the Dark Governor once hated humanity to the bone.
He constantly sent Mechanical Hunters to massacre the survivors.
Later, he came up with an even more vicious method of revenge.
Rather than exterminating the surviving humans, he began capturing and raising them in captivity.
Those he captured were stuffed into Cultivation Pods.
Their minds were connected through sensory-link devices to the virtual world he had created—Nightmare Paradise.
Nightmare Paradise contained all kinds of terrifying scenarios and escape-and-kill games.
The captive humans escaped again and again within it, struggling without end.
They found hope amid despair, only to fall from the peak of hope into the abyss of despair.
Over and over, without end.
Until their minds collapsed, they became madmen, or they died.
When this information was transmitted to the fleet, even the Emperor was shocked by such horrifying atrocities.
Humans had been turned into batteries, reduced to toys for entertainment.
From birth until death, they spent their lives inside the virtual world.
The Dark Governor was like a supreme god, ruling over everything.
The Imperial forces were immensely powerful, and the mechanical army was no match for them.
The grand metal city was reduced to ruins, becoming broken walls and shattered structures belching black smoke.
The buildings where humans were kept in captivity, however, were carefully preserved.
The Mechanicus Sages examined the Cultivation Pods and discovered a thorny problem.
"If these people have lived in the virtual world all this time, destroying the equipment rashly may turn them all into idiots."
"Only by making the virtual world collapse from within and expelling their minds can we ensure that they awaken normally."
"I shall personally enter this so-called Nightmare Paradise," the Emperor said. "I will drag out the one behind it and punish him."
"Wouldn't that be too dangerous?" Waldo advised.
"No one's will can compare to mine."
The Emperor's attitude was resolute.
Raven did not try to dissuade him either. He wanted to see it for himself.
He wanted to taste what fries and ketchup in a virtual world were like.
A dilapidated, rust-covered hovering bus traveled through the mist.
There were twelve people inside: five women and seven men.
They sat on the bus, looking out at the mist with fear in their eyes.
They were players in Nightmare Paradise.
Every so often, they had to take part in a Nightmare Game.
Once they failed a game, they would suffer inhuman torture until their next game.
This life would continue until they went mad or died.
The bus moved forward like a ghost. Apart from the hum of its antigravity hover engine,
there was complete silence, without a single sound.
At last, the bus arrived at a gloomy, gray little town.
The town was lifeless, and dried bloodstains could be seen all over the walls of its houses.
A tall, thin figure wearing a raven mask stood beside the town's bus station, staring fixedly at the bus.
His wrists had been severed, replaced by scissors and hooks covered in blood-rust.
This game: Town Escape Under Nightmare's pursuit, collect tickets and escape the town
The bus doors opened, and the players got off in order.
Then the bus started again, disappearing into the mist and gradually moving away.
"Welcome, my adorable little snacks."
Nightmare stuck out his tongue and licked the blood-rusted hook, a vicious gleam filling his eyes.
The game had not begun yet, so Nightmare was still restricted and could not do anything to the players.
Yet his sinister words and actions still plunged the players into profound fear.
The players knew very well that if they failed the game and fell into his hands, they would suffer worse than death.
The game is about to @#@#!# The game is about to @#@#￥@# Program error, correcting ￥￥￥
.
The game prompts before the players turned into garbled text, seemingly invaded by something.
Just as they were bewildered, the dark sky was suddenly illuminated.
Under the players' astonished gazes, a golden sun slowly rose, dispersing the eerie mist.
PS: Praise the Four Gods every day, heretics.
At first, I had planned to simply write about a rebellious AI keeping humans captive.
But after thinking about it, that kind of plot was rather dull.
It would be better to write about a madman and a group of enslaved players.
Before you continue